British Eighth Army

The British Eighth Army was a field army of the British Army that existed from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The army was commanded by Alan Cunningham, Neil Ritchie, and Bernard Montgomery during the Western Desert Campaign against Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, and the army consisted not only of troops from the United Kingdom, but also from Australia, British Raj (India), Canada, the Free French Forces, Greece, New Zealand, Poland, Rhodesia, and South Africa. The army took part in the war in North Africa (1941-1943), the 1943 Operation Husky invasion of Sicily, and the push up the boot of Italy until May 1945. The army lost 123,254 losses in Italy, and the army was later redesignated as the British occupation forces in Austria.